Key Features

* Includes a contribution by Noam Chomsky, one of the most cited authors of our time

Description

What were the circumstances that led to the development of our cognitive abilities from a primitive hominid to an essentially modern human? The answer to this question is of profound importance to understanding our present nature. Since the steep path of our cognitive development is the attribute that most distinguishes humans from other mammals, this is also a quest to determine human origins. This collection of outstanding scientific problems and the revelation of the many ways they can be addressed indicates the scope of the field to be explored and reveals some avenues along which research is advancing. Distinguished scientists and researchers who have advanced the discussion of the mind and brain contribute state-of-the-art presentations of their field of expertise. Chapters offer speculative and provocative views on topics such as body, culture, evolution, feelings, genetics, history, humor, knowledge, language, machines, neuroanatomy, pathology, and perception. This book will appeal to researchers and students in cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy.

How Did Modern Human Cognition Evolve?Taking Up Arms.Celebrating 300 Million Years of the Mind.Was Medieval Cell Doctrine More Modern Than We Thought?Can Evolution Produce Robots?The Thought - Translation Device.Babes in Arms: Studies in Laterality.Why a Creative Brain?: Evolutionary Set-ups for Off-line Planning of Coherent Stages.Creativity: Method or Magic?The Cross-Cultural Brain.Where's the Missing Body?: A Puzzle for Cognitive Science.Whose Free Will is it Anyway?Affective Neuroscience and the Ancestral Sources of Human Feelings.The Funny Meat Behind our Eyes.Practicing Safe Stress: A Selective Overview of the Neuroscience Research.Petrol Sniffing, the Brain and Aboriginal Culture: Between Sorcery and Neuroscience.Chatting with Noam Chomsky.

Quotes and reviews

"...the volume is well worth reading. The editors should be congratulated for pursuing a different vision about how to transmit knowledge of mind and brain to the public, and to students and colleagues."Christine Chiarello, in LATERALITY, 13:2, 198-199, Jan 2008